Millions of children have no access to education, work long hours under hazardous conditions and are forced to serve as soldiers in armed conflict. They suffer targeted attacks on their schools and teachers or languish in institutions or detention centers, where they endure inhumane conditions and assaults on their dignity. Young and immature, they are often easily exploited. In many cases, they are abused by the very individuals responsible for their care. We are working to help protect children around the world, so they can grow into adults.

Children's Rights

Florida legislators should approve Senate Bill 1082, which would allow judges rather than prosecutors to decide when to prosecute a child as an adult. If enacted, the proposed law would greatly reduce the number of children prosecuted in Florida’s adult courts.

For more than 15 years, Human Rights Watch has investigated hazardous child labor on farms in the United States and around the world. In the last two years we have conducted in-depth research on children working in tobacco in the four major tobacco-producing states, including Virginia, and published a report on the topic.

Each year, when school lets out for the summer, children as young as 12 — and sometimes younger — start working long hours tending tobacco in Virginia and other big tobacco states. They absorb nicotine through their skin, get sprayed with pesticides and use sharp axes to hack down rows of tobacco taller than they are — all in the extreme heat and humidity common during the summer months in the South. The work makes many of them sick.